User Contributed Notes 19 notes

If you have zlib.output_compression set to on when your script starts (in php.ini or via apache directive), then you disable it at runtime using ini_set() before producing output, your output will still be buffered! Even if you call ob_implicit_flush().

If you want unbuffered output, you must disable zlib.output_compression before your script starts (as well as mod_gzip of course, if you have both installed).

php at seven dot net dot nz: Have you been using register_shutdown_function() that outputs something? If yes, some of the output was not encoded and IE6 is less than forgiving about that. In my case it was reloading the page and sometimes showing a blank page. So IE6 does get invalid stream, bug is not bogus, only description is not good enough.

jpleveille at webgraphe dot com:In PHP 4.4.2 register_shutdown_function() DOES output whatever you wish, but it is not encoded with the rest of the document. Which is even worse as you get a bug that is difficult / impossible to track down.

zlib.output_compression has caused problems for me in IE 6, when pages are sometimes not displayed. This could be difficult to track down and PHP have no intention of fixing it, so hopefully you find this note in a search if it happens to you.

It says that zlib.output_compression is PHP_INI_ALL changable, but in my case at least, this is not true. When using ini_set('zlib.output_compression', 'On') runtime, phpinfo() states that zlib.output_compression is enabled, yet there is no compression.

Since I don't want to enable zlib.ouput_compression for all sites in php.ini, my solution was to enable it in apache conf (.htaccess should work as well) with the line:php_flag zlib.output_compression on

Contrary to what the documentation says, I've been unable to get zlib.output_compression to work via ini_set() (Even though I put it at the very beginning of the file before any output was sent) as of php 4.3.11. While it does get set to true, it will not actually do anything. Which means if you don't set this via php.ini or Apache configuration it's a no-go. I have to use ob_start("ob_gzhandler"); instead.

I just tried this and achieved 10x and 15x speed inprovement onsome mature php pages. Pages I have been seating over to make 5% gains on. I use microtime() on critical pages to help me track page speed and that confirms the speed improvement. The php page takes a timestamp at the beginning and end, then logs the page duration. So any IP transmission effects are not included. There isa clear subjective difference to the user.

The test system was PHP 4.3.6, Apache 2.0.49 over Linux 2.4.As always YMMV.

To create a gzip file:file_put_contents("compress.zlib:///myphp/test.txt.gz","Put this in the file\r\n");

Things to note about this:-The best prefix to use is "compress.zlib", not "zlib"-If you wish to specify a path starting in the root path, you actually end up with three slashes. The above path corresponds to "/myphp/test.txt" on unix, and "c:\myphp\test.txt" on Windows (if C: is the current drive). I tested it just on Windows.-Compression and decompression both use the same prefix of "compress.zlib://" (plus one more slash to get a root dir).-I'm using 5.0, so I'm not 100% sure which behaviour started in which version.

If you turn zlib.output_compression_level on, be advised that you shouldn't try to flush() the output in your scripts. PHP will add the gzip header but send the output uncompressed, which plays havoc with Mozilla. IE seems to handle it, though.

An alternate way to handle gzip compression is to let the mod_gzip module of apache handle it. This seems to contradict the tutorial on phpbuilder.com saying that it won't compress php (or any dynamic) output, but mod_gzip as of version 1.3.17.1a works well for me.